Romania Photo of the Day by Dreamstime: Shepherding in autumn colors

The Romania Photo of the Day created in partnership with stock photo provider Dreamstime aims to highlight the best of Romania. From stunning landscapes and popular tourist destinations and landmarks to people, traditions, and food, this series helps you discover Romania one photo at a time. This week, we put the focus on beautiful Romanian landscapes in autumn colors.

Passing on from generation to generation, for hundreds of years, the custom of Carpathian shepherding and the associated semi-nomadic pastoral tradition of transhumance form a rich cultural phenomenon that has shaped the relationships between local people, animals, and ecosystems, creating a powerful bond between them. (Photo source - click on the number to get to the photo 35054708 / Autumn © Barat Roland | Dreamstime.com)

Over time, communities that have this occupation at their core formed, with specific social practices and associated rituals, according to a paper entitled The Carpathian herding, tradition, and continuitywritten by Sabin Fărcaș, generating a local, regional, and even national identity.

Nowadays, the tradition is kept alive, with shepherds grazing their sheep high up on the Carpathian Mountains during the summer months, and down in the valleys when the weather starts to get cold once more.

The lives of pastoral shepherds are far from comfortable and require living outdoors and away from family and home comforts for up to five months of the year, says Paul White on wildtransylvania.com. They live and work with their sheep for twenty-four hours a day, walking for many kilometers each day, and sleeping at night in makeshift huts which look very much like large rabbit hutches. There are no toilets and no running water or electricity. Oil lamps are used for lighting and water is fetched from rivers and streams for washing and cooking.